With regard to an officer's pay and allowances, if he be retrenched, it is thus effected. The Paymaster of his regiment or Circle receives the retrenchment from the Military Auditor-General's Office, signed by the chief or his deputy. If the officer thinks his charge is not according to the regulations, he writes down his reasons on the back of the paper--if the objection be lengthy, the officer appends a sheet of paper--and sends it back through the Paymaster to the Military Auditor-General's office: who, should he agree, will write in red ink "Passed." If the drawer still demurs, he requests that it may be laid before the Governor-General in council, when the Military Auditor-General is usually called upon to explain. An appeal lies to the Court of Directors; but this is a step which is very rarely resorted to. The Military Board is near the river side. It is composed of a paid Member, the Commandant of Artillery (ex-officio), the Chief Engineer (ex-officio), and the Commissary-General (ex-officio). There is a secretary and two assistant secretaries, besides forty-three clerks and several native writers, who are employed in the six departments--General and Miscellaneous; Public Works, Roads and Canals; Draftsmen's; Ordnance; Commissariat; and Stud. The arms and accoutrements of a corps which are indented for by the commanding officer, are checked by this board. All Ordnance stores for practice, or service ammunition of the Artillery, or for corps; all estimates and charges for fortifications or military buildings, for civil buildings, roads and canals; in fact every item entering into the operations of war, or required in time of peace, is indented for and checked at this office. Indents are annually forwarded to the Court of Directors so as to keep the arsenals and magazines filled. Sometimes the Court clip the indents. During the Affghan war the Board sent up twelve 9-pounders instead of six 18-pounders, because it is said 9 × 12 = 108 and 18 × 6 = 108, being the ratio as to calibre, however 18-pounders will breach when 9-pounders will not. The paid member is an exception to Virgil's adage: _non omnia possumus omnes_. The new plan which has lately been very judiciously introduced into her Majesty's army, for the education of the officers, which requires them to have some knowledge of mathematics and "that symbolical language, by which alone the laws can be fully decyphered by which God has thought good to govern the universe,"[106] leads me to remark how necessary and important it is that the officers should possess some amount of scientific learning. Thus, the member of this Military board, for instance, has an estimate sent him for erecting a building. The amount of pressure on the foundation, its superficial extent, etc., call for a considerable amount of scientific knowledge.